From Shadows Until Dawn
by Viktor Mayrin
Summary: You can only run for so long before the demons you left behind find you again. As the dusk creeps into Vale, Blake makes a decision.


From Shadows Until Dawn

By Viktor Mayrin

**Part One: Creeping Dusk**

Blake was washing her hands when the overpowering scent of rotting meat shoved the normally sterile smell of the bathroom into the ground and beat it to death. She gagged and tried to suck in a fresh breath of air as she heard the door slam open. Rough hands grabbed her hips and spun her one hundred and eighty degrees, Gambol Shroud torn from her back and tossed idly to the floor. Standing well over a foot taller than Blake was a woman that had haunted her nightmares as a child and had served to make some of them real as a young teenager.

Her skin was a rich bronze color, with great swathes of it on display because of the woman's clothing. Swirling tattoos covered the woman's abdomen, with apexes pointing towards her breasts and pelvis. Her skirt was a mixture of leather and silk, a warm brown color with streaks of dull rusty red. Her top, a band of ebony silk that just barely covered her modesty, was festooned with gold and silver beads that rattled slightly as she moved. Muddy yellow eyes radiating an intelligent insanity hungrily devoured Blake's form as they roved over her. The woman laughed, a strange barking noise that dredged up some of Blake's worst nightmares, and shook her head, letting the bones and bits of metal threaded into her dreadlocks (dull brown streaked with white) crack against each other. Her short tail, barely the length of Blake's forearm, wagged furiously.

Another form entered Blake's peripheral vision. There were only minor differences in the form of the woman's twin brother, though he seemed to have decided since Blake had seen him last that wearing a shirt was acceptable. The garment, more tunic than shirt, was a coarse cotton affair, pale yellow in color with the exception for the swathe of brown that might have been dried blood on the side. His pants, on the other hand, were quality leather. A rich brown in color, and Blake could smell the treatment chemicals on it still. Unlike his sister, his tail barely twitched. He calmly collected Gambol Shroud from the floor and attached it to his own hip as he let a trio of spheres connected by wires unwrap from his wrist. He idly began to spin and flip the strange weapon in his hands while staring flatly at Blake.

Roet lifted Blake effortlessly and placed the teenager onto the lip of the sink. The faucet jabbed Blake's tail-bone painfully as she slipped into the basin.

"Blake! It's been too long!" Roet exclaimed, leaning her against the mirrors. "Almost a year now, wouldn't you say, Stof?"

"About eleven months." His voice low and dangerous, not matching his grin. "Didn't even say goodbye. Just sort of..."

"Toddled off! In quite a tizzy, to hear Adam tell it! Did you know he was morose for weeks? Couldn't quite figure out why you'd done a runner!" Roet sniffed the exposed skin of Blake's neck. "Mmmmmhmmmm, you smell _nice_. Fresh fish _and_ beef! You've just had lunch then?"

"Stop." Blake gasped. "Please stop. Let me down."

The humor immediately disappeared from Roet's face. Loathing replaced sickly sweet lust in a flash. Blake flinched as Roet's fingers dug into her shoulder. "Pardon? Little Kitten, did you just tell me to _stop_?" She pulled Blake roughly out of the sink basin and produced a long blade from her skirts.

"You vanish for near eleven months and when we find you, you've got the audacity to tell me to _stop_?" The blade found its way to Blake's side in a flash, point resting uncomfortably under her ribs. "Pray tell, what gives you the _right_ to tell me what I can and cannot do?"

"I just-" The blade jabbed sharply, cutting off Blake's reply. "The faucet was bruising me! That's all! I swear!"

Blake caught the tell-tale rusty red color of Roet's aura just before the woman's Semblance wrapped her head in a blanket of terror. Roet's eyes remained narrow for a moment longer, and then the saccharine humor returned. "Awww, you poor little thing. Do you want me to kiss it better?" Her free hand drifted to Blake's lower back.

"Roet, don't forget our priorities." Stof muttered. "The message."

Roet blinked for a moment. "Oh, right." Her smile turned dangerous again. "Dearest Blake, you've been gone for so long that we were beginning to think you had lapsed in your membership duties. We just wanted to remind you that we're having a local meeting tonight. We will, of course, escort you so you don't get lost."

Blake's pale complexion turned turned bone white. "Uh, thanks, but I-"

"We've just got to meet at the park with all the secluded alcoves!" Roet trilled as she traced her blade's tip against Blake's left kidney. "The one by the industrial district! _You_ know, arches everywhere, benches for lovers on walks."

Blake felt her gorge rising, the effects of the Roet's Semblance already causing her to panic. Stof lazily spun his bolas around his finger, the dust-infused spheres cracking against each other with sparks of lightning. His grin spoke of many horrible things.

Roet gently licked the edge of Blake's normal ear while she pinched the tip of one of her cat ears. "Do try not to be late. I'd hate to have to substitute you with someone innocent. Like a human child. Or that delectable morsel with the red hair that you room with. You do know how mad I get when my favorite toys are missing."

The fingers pinching her ear suddenly grasped it and twisted, forcing Blake to hiss in pain as she was forced to her knees. "No games. No one follows you. No telling anyone about this clandestine meeting, Kitten. I smell one hint of anyone else and I'll kill you and then move on to your so-called 'friends'. Do you understand me?"

Blake nodded her head. The pain on her ear disappeared. "Good! We'll see you around, oh, eightish? Does that give you enough time to prepare? Adam seemed very insistent about that. Silly man. But he does have good taste. Ah well. Eight it is, then. Toodles!"

And then they were gone. Blake stumbled over to the nearest stall and emptied her stomach of lunch and breakfast in painful heaves that left her near breathless. Her throat burned with acid as her belly came up empty. One final dry heave left her slumped against the toilet, tears blinding her.

The White Fang had found her and it wanted her back.

_- / -_

"Has anyone seen Blake?" Yang asked as she inspected a pair of gloves.

Ruby shrugged as she tapped away at her scroll. "Not since lunch. Maybe she went back to the dorms for pads?"

"She's not... Ruby." Yang sighed. "Do you pay attention _at all_ in Biology? Like, at all?"

"...Yes?" Ruby looked confused. "Look, I actually did pay attention during the reproduction segment, okay? I know that-"

"Faunus don't necessarily have periods like humans, Ruby." Yang rubbed her face. "Look, just... just go. Somewhere. Anywhere."

Ruby petulantly stuck her tongue out as she wandered off. Yang pulled out her own scroll and accessed the messaging function. She tapped out a note and sent it to Blake's scroll and then sent a different one to Weiss. After a moment, she CCd Sun on the note she sent to Weiss.

"Hope he hasn't lost his scroll. _Again_." She grumbled as she stowed her tablet in a pouch.

"Yo."

Yang twitched as Sun clapped her on the shoulder. "I haven't seen Blake in like, fifteen hours? It's _literally_ killing me."

"No, Sun." Yang face-palmed. "You can't- Okay. Okay. So you haven't seen Blake then?"

"I thought I made that pretty clear, yeah. Why? I mean, unless you're asking because you've got her somewhere nearby and wanted to make me happy."

"Sun. Do me a gigantic favor?"

"Oh...kay?"

"Find Blake for me. We went to lunch and then she went to the washroom and never came back." Yang pinched the bridge of her nose. "Vermilion's. Third floor of the mall. Ladies' Room against the far wall."

"Is everything okay?"

"Just _go_."

Sun waved as he sauntered towards the escalators. "Later!"

Yang checked her scroll again. The message notification chimed as the icon bounced happily in the corner. She tapped it and began walking for the exit as she hissed out an expletive. She opened a new message to Team JNPR as she cleared the doors, and CCd the message to Velvet. After a moment of furious tapping, she closed the scroll again.

"Guess I'll check the dorms anyway..."

_- / -_

Yang froze as she pushed the door open.

The dorm room had been ransacked. The beds, no longer in their pseudo-bunkbed configuration, had been literally torn apart. Books, papers, and clothing lay in piles. Blake's bookshelf, once so orderly and alphabetized, lay in ruins. The books the Faunus had been slowly accumulating lay in a pile, their pages ripped from the spines.

"What the _fuck_?" Yang whispered as she stepped into the room.

Blake's scroll lay in the center of the destruction, the notification light blinking softly. Yang collected it and slid the device open. Instead of the usual pattern lock, it opened directly to the Home screen. A bouncing camera icon greeted Yang ominously.

"If you're watching this..." Blake's voice stop for a moment. "If you're watching this, I'm sorry. I couldn't stay here any longer. I can't. I can't put you guys in danger like this. I just can't. I'm so sorry. I have to go. Don't come looking for me, please."

The timestamp for the video file read 7.38 pm.

End Chapter


End file.
